A Human Rights Activist from Kazakhstan Coming to Wake Europe Protecting a Criminal Up

The Kazakh “Tagdyr” foundation chairman Armangul Kapasheva is coming to Berlin on the 16th of June. Wife of the kidnapped Kazakhstan banker will visit European Union one more time in order to meet human rights activists and attract attention of the Europeans to murders and kidnappings achieved by Rakhat Aliyev who is now hiding in Austria.

“When have you seen your relatives for the last time?” – Armangul Kapasheva asked the journalist during one of her last interviews before her trip to Germany. – “When have you talked to them for the last time? In the morning? Yesterday? A week ago? My husband has been missing for almost two years and I even don’t know whether I am a widow or not”. Her husband, Zholdas Timraliyev, a co-founder of “Nurbank”, on of the largest banks in Ka-zakhstan, disappeared without a trace on the 31st of January 2007 after he had met the former ambassador of Kazakhstan in Austria, ex-son-in-law of the president of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev, Rakhat Aliyev. Kapasheva is absolutely sure that it is Aliyev who is to blame. “I’ve collected enough evidence” – she says, – “but no one wants to see it in Austria”. The authorities of Vienna gave political refuge to the former secret police deputy head in the Aus-trian Republic, in spite of the fact that at home he is sentenced to 40 years of imprisonment. The reason: the legal system of Kazakhstan is allegedly “obscure” and can’t guarantee “fair” trial.

“It’s quite possible, – Armangul Kapasheva thinks, – that judges in Austria doubt neutrality of their colleagues from Kazakhstan. But I believe that Austria mustn’t block European trial against Aliyev”. This is her aim, to insist on independent trial in Europe, and that is why Ar-mangul Kapasheva together with family members of Aliyev’s victims founded the “Tagdyr” (which is translated as “Fate”). She is not interested in money or power, all that she wants is to find her husband if he is still alive or at least to have an opportunity to bury him according to the tradition of Kazakh people. “Surely, – this high-spirited woman adds, – I’d like to see that people guilty in this crime are punished according to the law”.

It is this desire that brought Mrs Kapasheva to Berlin. The “Tagdyr” fund leader will come to the capital of Germany for the term from the 16th to the 19th of June in order to meet politi-cians and human rights activists, to talk about the “Aliyev’s case” with them, possibly to get a piece of advice and to attract attention of the Europeans to this subject. However she doesn’t cherish hopes. Until now the “Aliyev’s case” didn’t really interest the Europeans. “I don’t understand it, – Kapasheva says, – all Europe has become a witness of injustice. Where are all those honest and brave European human rights activists that defended rights of Guantanamo prisoners or the downtrodden Tibetians? Why do they not pay attention to what happens in close vicinity, in the middle of Europe?” She brought numerous information materials proving Rakhat Aliyev’s crimes and is going to hand it in to human rights activists and journalists. Those who would lack copies can visit the web-site http://rakhataliyev.com/en/.

Armangul Kapasheva doesn’t lose hope: “Human rights and justice in civilized European de-mocracy can’t be insignificant”. Will her opinion be heard in Berlin this time? Time will show.

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Charles van der Leeuw, writer, news analyst, was born in The Hague, The Netherlands, in 1952. He started working as an independent reporter on cultural issues in a wide variety of publications back in 1977. Ten years later, he settled down in war-torn Beirut as an international war correspondent, following a first experience in Iraq in 1985, which resulted in his first book on the Iraq-Iran war. After his kidnapping and release in 1989, his second book “Lebanon – the injured innocence” came out, followed, in early 1992, by “Kuwait burns”. Later in the year, he settled down in Baku, Azerbaijan, as a war correspondent. “Storm over the Caucasus” on the southern Caucasus geopolitical conflicts came out in 1997 in the Dutch language and two years later in the first English edition. It was followed by “Azerbaijan – a quest for identity” and “Oil and gas in the Caucasus and Caspian – a history”, both published in 2000, and “Black & Blue” published in Almaty in summer 2003 about the stormy rise of Russia’s present-day oil and gas companies.
In 2012, he published a bipartite book about the histories of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. His latest publication before this work was “Cold War II: cries in the desert – or how to counterbalance NATO’s propaganda from Ukraine to Central Asia”, published by Herfordshire Press, England, along with books similar to this one on Kyrgyzstan, published in English, French and German editions.